Why Do You Need a CMS?

Whenever our ecommerce team is approached to develop a new mobile app or ecommerce service, the client is most excited about the frontend features. We rarely hear about their plan for the day-to-day management requirements. We understand–it's more fun to dream about the UI versus a boring backend content management system. However, the CMS is a critical component of any enterprise system, and quite possibly the most important part of any platform. If you can't update your service, then the content grows stale and eventually you start to lose customers. Let's review how Sunrise Integration tackles these issues using Contentful as a headless CMS option.

Don't Forget About Content Management

The best websites and apps are personalized digital experiences that provide fresh content to engage the user. Even seemingly simple features like announcements or push notifications will make your customer feel included. But how can you update content without having to learn code or complex server maintenance? This is where a content management system (CMS) comes into the picture.

A CMS empowers you to make changes and automatically push content directly to your website, mobile app, ecommerce pages, blog and more. The CMS is a backend platform that communicates with the frontend UI/UX layer to provide the data and content for the service. In today's modern, cross-platform technology stack, companies usually have multiple apps and services utilizing the same data. To be efficient, you need a singular way to update multiple services. You can do this with a headless CMS platform like Contentful.

Contentful is a cloud-based, API-centric, content management platform. You can create custom "spaces" that feature blocks of data, data-models and content forms. Your team enters the data into Contentful and the platform provides you with a set of APIs to deliver that data as structured JSON. You can now programmatically consume that data in websites, mobile apps, ecommerce services and any other digital experience.

Customize Your Content Management

Not every company has the same data or business requirements. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. This is why we use Contenful for our enterprise developments. Our data team can create custom data-models to match the specific needs of any project. Does your home page need a customizable alert message? No problem, we can develop a WYSIWYG form to make entry a breeze. We configure Contentful to match your needs.

Once the data model is in place, we then create custom forms for the editing team to enter information. This is where Contentful really makes things easy for editors. They can add text, numbers, images, and more with just the click of a button–no coding necessary.

All of this data is reusable so the content can be sent across multiple channels and devices, all at once. Imagine being able to update your website, mobile app and Slack channel all at once. With a Contentful integration, we can make this a reality. In the old business model, web changes required coding, and were the responsibility of the development team. That is no longer the case with a Contentful integration. We can create an easy-to-use form for any skill level. Updates are just a click away.

Wide Open Design Choices

Contentful handles the backend data and feeds the structured content to your frontend user interface. This gives you endless options for design with no constraints. In our Contentful projects, our frontend design team is free to dazzle and use modern development frameworks like React.js, Next.js and more. The content is extracted from Contentful using an API integration that feeds the text, images and more to the design layer. This type of "headless" technology provides convenience for developers and content creators. Each team can focus on their core skills and still work together.

The Future is Interconnected

There is a wealth of technical platforms and services available to the business world. Combining platforms lets companies choose the tools that best suit their needs. It's becoming more common for a typical business stack to contain separate platforms interconnected via an API integration. We find ourselves making these connections and creating a powerful omnichannel solution. With content being at the core of most services, Contentful is leading the way with a solid solution for managing data. If your business is looking for a headless CMS solution, then Contentful should be on the top of your list.